WORTH WATCHING

Ang Lee Introduces the Flying Fish Clip from 'Life of Pi' Adaptation

"I'm pleased to present this special clip from the film which I hope gives you a flavor of the spirit of our lead character, Pi Patel." While it's not often that we feature clips, this is one I'm making an exception for. Not only because it's a good clip for a film that I am looking forward to seeing, but it's the same clip that was used as a trailer in front of Prometheus back in June. This time it has an Ang Lee introduction (where that quote at the beginning comes from). Pi is played by Suraj Sharma, and I bet you can't tell the tiger is CGI. It's a fun clip plus another reminder to keep an eye on this when it hits theaters this Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Here's the flying fish clip/preview for Ang Lee's Life of Pi adaptation, originally from Yahoo:

Life of Pi is the story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific. Life of Pi, based on Yann Martel's novel, is being directed in 3D by Oscar winning Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee, of Taking Woodstock, Lust Caution, Brokeback Mountain, Hulk and Crouching Tiger previously. The cast includes Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain and Tabu, in addition to the animals and Pi, as it also looks like there's quite a bit going on in this. Fox has Life of Pi scheduled for a wide 3D release November 21st this year. You in?

the only thing that annoys me...the shutter being at 1/30 rather than 1/48, that's my only gripe with digital

http://www.facebook.com/dgovil Dhruv Aditya Govil

umm, what? 1/30 would meam either an open shutter at 30fps or a 180 at 15fps. This was most definitely a 24fps movie.
Digital != fixed shutter/fps

http://www.facebook.com/thomas.carroll.3557 Thomas Carroll

i know it was a 24fps movie...as are all digital films...but normal 24fps films typically have a shutter of 1/48th...whilst digital films these days make the exception of utilising 1/30th, simply because it works better in lower light conditions. Some movie makers prefer this aesthetic because having their sets lit with less lights makes their scene look more naturalistic...but the compromise is that there is more motion blur to the movement within the frame.
For an extreme example, compare the techniques of filming between Michael Mann's "Public Enemies", compared to David Fincher's "The Social Network".
Both are filmed on digital, yet they both look different with the amount of shutter and motion blur in frame.
Mann shoots at 24fps under 1/30th because he wants to film under gaslight and bring out the details of the night, like the human eye would. He's done this since "Collateral". But through this technique, he compromises the look of the film, giving it an overall fluid, but blurry motion to movement in the frame.
Fincher, however, uses digital as a cost effective approach but aims to mimic the conventions of traditional film. He shoots at 24fps, but he puts his shutter to 1/48th.
Yes, as a compromise he needs more light to light his scenes, but the trade off is that his footage appears to be exactly like film stock.
Do you understand now what I'm getting at?
Life of Pi was obviously shot in digital, you can tell.
The shutters aren't always fixed, it depends on what the director wants. That's what digital is about, it's about more visual freedom.
One of the main reasons people shoot with digital (beside the cost effective nature of it) is because it absorbs/reads light in a totally different way to traditional film cameras. This does include shooting at lower shutter speeds, with less light, and lower 'motion blur'...but nonetheless there is still some motion blur remaining...and it's distracting.
thats my one gripe with digital

http://www.facebook.com/dgovil Dhruv Aditya Govil

Not to start an argument but:
>Dante Spinotti shot Public Enemies at 30fps with an open shutter because he wanted it to look modern, as a contrast between the period and the situation. Any interview with him on the (at the time) highly controversial choice will have him very decidedly back it up.
Any experienced DP could get the same lighting look with any other shutter type.
>Fincher shot the Social network on Reds a)because of the cost b)because of the exceptional quality and workflow. The latter is one of the many things he has applauded Red on.
I'm not sure where you're pulling this 1/30 number from. It's so arbitrary. Having seen behind the scenes footage, its very clear that they use 1/48 among other shutter speeds (look at the monitors). Also film cameras can shoot 1/30 too. With Alexas and Epics, the latitude is also the same. The only real difference is in post and green vs blue channels.

Daniel Mimura

I just started watching the movie and its very annoying to watching the greater the 180 degree shutter. It's clearly open more than a 1/48th of a second---I don't know why you'd question where TC is pulling that number from. Use your eyes. It looks awful---all bleedy, like video from 1970.
And no, Alexa & Epics do not have the same lattitude. Epic is at least a stop, closer to two or 2 1/2 stops less lattitude than Alexa.
yes, any experienced DP can get the same lighting regardless of frame rate, but it doesn't mean it's gonna look good.
I don't have any idea whether it was Miranda's choice or Lee's choice to shoot > 1/48th of a second, but I think it looks awful. God awful, distractingly uncinematic. A beautiful, lush, exotic, high budget...travel video, (stress on the word video--as opposed to film.)The Academy felt otherwise, givi Pi best cinematography, but they always make weird choices for best cinematography.